


Observation

by JHSC



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint/Natasha brOTP, Concussions, Gen, Team Feels, immediately post-Avengers, nobody was physically ok after that battle, shwarma, this is all shadowen's fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:12:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1869186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JHSC/pseuds/JHSC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The feast had been a good idea, Natasha thought. Still buzzing with adrenaline, the team had set upon the baskets of shwarma, fries, hummus, and pita with enthusiasm. Now, however, exhaustion seemed to have set in. It was time to call it a day - get whatever medical attention they required and pursue the sleep of the (traumatized) victorious.</p>
<p>She nudged Barton to draw his attention away from the crumbs of his dinner. “Hey. We’re a couple blocks from headquarters. You ready to head over?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Observation

Natasha glanced around the table as she picked at the basket of french fries in front of her. At the back of the restaurant, the owners were quietly picking up from the destruction caused by an invasion of aliens, followed soon thereafter by an invasion of superheroes. To her left, Rogers looked ready to fall asleep with his chin in his hand if he wasn’t careful. Across from her, Thor was deeply engrossed in his third or fourth sandwich - she had lost track after the first course of food and the rush to consume it as quickly as possible. Now, the team’s energy was flagging as they picked at the last of their meals, as evidenced by the uncharacteristic silence between Stark and Banner. Finally, her gaze rested on Barton, slouched next to her with his foot up on the seat of her chair. He was staring down at the basket in his lap, gaze unfocused and eyes bloodshot.

They’d left Loki back at the Tower, in the hole Hulk had pounded him into, with Thor’s hammer on his chest and a SHIELD tactical team keeping close watch. Thor had made assurances that his brother (“He’s adopted.”) would be unable to escape from under its weight while they took a break for “a mighty feast, now that our battle is done.”

The feast had been a good idea, Natasha thought. Still buzzing with adrenaline, the team had set upon the baskets of shwarma, fries, hummus, and pita with enthusiasm. Now, however, exhaustion seemed to have set in. It was time to call it a day - get whatever medical attention they required and pursue the sleep of the (traumatized) victorious.

She nudged Barton to draw his attention away from the crumbs of his dinner. “Hey. We’re a couple blocks from headquarters. You ready to head over?”

“Where you guys going?” Stark broke in before Barton could reply. 

“SHIELD. We need to check in and debrief. And sleep. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Nah, come up to the tower so you can actually be comfortable. Debriefing can wait until you have, you know, clean briefs on. Or something. Ignore that, that was terrible.” 

Ah, she remembered. Stark babbles when he’s upset.

Banner broke in, “I’m… not sure if I’m comfortable…”

“Comfortable, what? Going in to SHIELD? Of course not.” Stark nudged the basket of fries closer to Banner’s elbow, who absently dug in. “The point is, SHIELD is stingy, they’ll probably throw you in the barracks on three-inch-thick mattresses, we saved the world, we deserve Tempur-Pedic at the very least.”

Rogers finally seemed to realize that a conversation was going on around him. “Tempur, what?”

“Tempur-Pedic. Memory foam. Created for astronauts - oh, right, well, astronauts are-”

“I know what astronauts are, Stark.”

“Right, well, the point is, I’ve got about seventeen guest room up in the penthouse and they’re all kitted out with the best mattresses on the market. Except for the room Happy crashes in. He thinks a ten thousand dollar mattress will make him weak, I had to put a Serta in there for him, it was awful.”

Everyone stared at Stark for a moment, waiting for him to continue, but he seemed to run out of steam at that point and flopped back into his chair. 

Rogers glanced at Natasha. “It does sound tempting.”

“Thanks for the offer, Stark, but unless your guest rooms also come stocked with Dermabond and Vicodin - ” Even as he opened his mouth to no-doubt claim that he was fully capable of acquiring narcotics for his team, Natasha continued without pause, “- as well as a licensed medical practitioner who has signed the right non-disclosure agreements, we’re going to have to pass.”

Stark frowned, annoyed. “You didn’t used to be so combative.”

“You used to pay me a lot more.”

“I can get us doctors. I can have the best doctors in the city waiting for us in the penthouse by the time we get back, with pain pills and happy pills and probably a portable MRI--.”

“The city was just under attack, Stark, people are hurt, leave the doctors alone to do their jobs--”

“Their jobs can be whatever I pay them to do, and if I want--”

“I thought,” Thor spoke up, his meal finally concluded, “that we had moved past this impulse for petty bickering. Did we not learn from the last time our tempers flared and our words became heated?”

Rogers’ face fell, Banner flushed to his roots, and Stark lowered his hands from where they’d been gesticulating seemingly of their own accord. Natasha nodded to Thor and leaned back in her chair, the very image of non-confrontational. As she did, the movement jostled Barton’s leg - still propped up where he’d set it before the meal began - and a sharp intake of breath, followed by a low groan, pulled her attention back to the man beside her..

She eased forward in her seat, relieving the pressure on his leg, and turned to face him. “Barton?”

He was still in the same slouched position, gaze directed at the edge of the table in front of him. She leaned forward into his eye line. “Barton?” she asked again, in a more urgent tone.

He took several long blinks, then tilted his face towards her, still unfocused. “Huh?”

“Status report, Barton.”

He seemed to consider the question for a moment, before he finally spoke in a low tone, “Feet hurt. Think I broke ‘em.”

The rest of the table had gone silent, watching the exchange in growing tension. Rogers stood and went towards the door; she heard him call out to the SHIELD team waiting outside.

Barton’s gaze drifted away again, and Natasha turned her body to follow. “What else hurts, Barton?”

He made another brief inquisitive sound.

“Did you hit your head again? Since we left the carrier?”

Another long pause as Barton considered the question. “Went... went true -- went through a window?”

Natasha caught Banner’s eye; the doctor leaned forward to grasp Barton’s wrist at the pulse point and draw his attention over to the right. “Okay, Barton, can you let me take a look at you?” 

Banner began his exam without waiting for a response, checking Barton’s pulse, his eye movement, his grip strength. Now that he’d been drawn out of his shell and forced to answer questions, Barton’s breathing was becoming increasingly ragged, his color fading rapidly.

Stark spoke up again, in a more serious tone than he’d used all throughout the battle. “Mount Sinai’s about two miles up Madison, streets are probably clear in that direction, we can get him there in ten minutes.”

“New York Presbyterian’s ranked number one in neurology,” Banner responded quietly as he continued checking Barton over. The pressure of his hands on Barton’s ribs had elicited another low moan that made Natasha flinch. 

“SHIELD’s three blocks away, we need to get him there.”

“Natasha, are SHIELD’s facilities really equipped to--”

“These are the facilities that managed to bring Rogers back to life without killing him; believe me, they’re equipped.”

“Let’s go, then,” Rogers said as he walked back into the restaurant. “Streets are too blocked up to get an ambulance through. Thor, you think you can -”

“I cannot fly him there without risking further injury, no, but I can certainly bear his weight for several miles.”

Rogers nodded. “Half a mile, down to 7th, that’s as far as we need to go.”

Natasha stood from her seat slowly, careful of Barton’s leg, and moved out of the way as Thor approached Barton’s side. “Hawkeye,” he said gently as he crouched down next to the chair. “I’m going to lift you up now. I promise to be as careful as I can be until we can get you into the doctor’s care.”

He paused for a response. Not getting one, he tucked one arm under Barton’s knees, the other beneath his shoulders, and began to lift. As he rose in the air, Barton began to breathe rapidly; he shifted his body, attempting to get free, and panted, “No no no nonono -”

He twisted in Thor’s arms and vomited onto the floor. Banner and Natasha shared a look, and began to silently usher Thor outside while the SHIELD agents trailing Rogers jumped forward to take care of the mess and deal with the proprietors. 

“It is fine,” Thor said, as he adjusted the now-shaking Barton more securely in his arms. “I have seen much worse after a night of boilermakers.”

“Boilermakers?” Stark asked. “Do I even want to know?”

“Let’s go,” Rogers broke in. Natasha shot him a grateful look. “Natasha, go on ahead with Thor, get Hawkeye to medical as soon as you can. Stark, Banner and I will meet you there.”

Thor nodded, and set off down the street at a brisk pace, his long legs working to keep his body steady as he moved. Natasha followed closely, and directed him down the street to the SHIELD facility hidden below Times Square.

*

Fourteen hours later, Clint woke up to find himself on a bed in a medical suite Through blurry eyes, he saw that there was an IV line in his elbow, a splint on his wrist, and a pulse oximeter clipped to his index finger. He didn’t look for the morphine drip, but he knew it was there.

“You know, I’m getting awful tired of waiting for you to wake up, Barton,” Tasha commented from her position in a comfortable-looking armchair pulled up next to the bed. She was dressed in a set of blue scrubs, with matching fuzzy socks, and had a neat row of stitches in her forehead. She held a book in her hands, and Clint knew it was one of the ones she had made up to look like Dostoevsky but actually contained Nora Roberts. The fact that he knew that about her made his stomach tighten with tension. He didn’t know why.

He dragged his eyes away from the book. “What happened?”

She raised one eyebrow. “Getting awful tired of that question, too.”

“Don’t be an ass.” He lowered his head back down to the pillow as the pain made itself known..

“You’re not the boss of me. What do you remember?”

He swallowed and collected his thoughts, noting the way Natasha held her breath as she waited. “I, uh… aliens? Big, green things. Big turtle, whale, thing. Giant. Huge.”

He frowned, and saw his expression mirrored in Natasha’s face. “I can’t… shit. Drugs? Concussion?”

“Two concussions,” she said. “At least. Apparently at some point, you went through the window of a high-rise.”

“Whoops.”

She snorted. 

“What’s the… all the damage? ‘Sides my brain?”

She leaned back in the chair and propped her feet up onto the bed by his hip. The ease in her posture belied the tension in her voice. “You broke your feet. You cracked three of your ribs. You sprained everything, and you’re covered in enough contusions that the doctors have been eyeballing the heparin. Oh, and apparently the only sleep you got in the past four days was when you were unconscious from the first concussion I gave you on the carrier.”

The list made Clint wince, delivered as it was so dispassionately. “Why’re you so cranky at me?”

A huff. “Because I’ve had this conversation with you twice already, and it’s getting tedious.”

“Oh. You all right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. For the third time.”

“You’re lyin’ to me for the third time, is what you mean.”

“Of course not.”

He frowned as he felt the pull of the medication - and, frankly, the concussions - dragging him back down towards unconsciousness. He closed his eyes. “Okay. Don’t lie to me when I ask you for a fourth time.”

“I never lie to you.”

He cracked an eyelid. “Liar.”

Her lips twisted in an almost-smile. “Go to sleep, Clint.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to shadowen for existing, Chrism for also existing, and my IRL BFF for researching concussion complications so that I don't have to.


End file.
